


The Gift of Stigmata

by RedTailedHawks



Series: a study in love and the things we do for it [6]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eli Palmer (mentioned) - Freeform, Faith Seed (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Jacob Seed (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTailedHawks/pseuds/RedTailedHawks
Summary: Rook's head whipped backward with the force of John’s backhand.
Series: a study in love and the things we do for it [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1454839
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	The Gift of Stigmata

“Do you want to be free, Samantha?” John asked her. He played with the knife in his hand and Sam finally let her head hang, tired of seeing him and tired of pretending everything was fine. Nothing was fine. 

It was all Sam’s fault anyway. She should have moved to the Henbane a week ago. But she could feel Faith’s anger radiating whenever she neared the river or the jailhouse. Without Jacob’s territory to help lengthen the time between beats it was getting harder and harder to play keep away with John and Faith. 

“You sound like you didn’t get enough Sesame Street as a kid,” Sam said, “maybe you should have watched the personal boundaries episode on repeat.”

Her head whipped backward with the force of John’s backhand. In the metallic emptiness of the room echoes the sound of skin hitting skin for a short moment. Leaving way for the short, harsh breathing of someone who probably had a bruised or broken rib. Sam tried to even out her breathing despite the pain. As hard she found it, she didn’t want to be dealing with some mucus related infection in her lungs later on. With only a handful of doctors— most stationed at the jailhouse with little supply and little mobility between regions— she didn’t want to be getting hospital-sized injuries. 

They were in high demand and everyone in the cult knew the faces of the few medically trained individuals that weren’t in their grasp and ripe for the picking. Moving a single doctor out to the Valley region to help with the injuries had proven a herculean task. It was the reason she was in the fucking hell bunker with Knives McGleeful. She’d taken a hit meant for the medic and told him to scurry on out.  


Granted they probably only saw her at the time the attack started. Sam had the county’s most well known hide nowadays and Johnny was desperate to be the first to tame the beast. Now there she sat, trying to prevent a lung infection and biting her tongue to keep the inquisitor from actually murdering her.

She lost count of the minutes that go by sometime around hour ten of being tied to the chair and she knew she had to get out and soon. Hopefully she could find Hudson on her merry way but if John didn’t get tired soon she could kiss most of her plans goodbye. If John gets bored now it would give her a solid fifteen minutes before the next guard walked by and that should be enough time to get herself out of the restraints. She was playing with them since she woke up in the chair and she’s sure she has something of a chance to get out of the knots with only minimal damage. But she needed the time. 

Sam didn’t know when exactly John started talking again clucking about as he picked up tools and set them down after a quick inspection. By now he’s used most of them on Sam. She was littered with cuts and bruises and puncture wounds as he tried his best to get anything that wasn’t a scathing remark out of her. 

“Why do you fight me so much? Why can’t you see I’m just trying to help you? If you just spoke to me honestly, if you just told me your sins. I would be able to guide you to salvation. Don’t you understand everything that’s at stake here? What we’re trying to do? What  _ I’m _ trying to do for you? If I don’t get you Jacob or Faith will, and then what will be left of you? You can trust me with your pain, Samantha. The heavy weight of your sins can rest on both our shoulders. It’s what I’m here for. I don’t actually like hurting you,” John said softly. 

Sam almost believed him. Sam almost wanted to tell him everything. All of the sins pent up in her body, begging for absolution from the second she walked out of her local church for the last time and right into a war zone everyone had asked her not to go to. Then, war had been her penance; for not being strong enough against her stepfather, for not telling anyone about what happened in her home before her brother signed up for war and got himself  _ killed _ . Not the same war as the one she fought in. but when God refused to let her die she refused him. 

After her first tour she just felt silly for ever believing in a God. What kind of god would let this happen? The all-knowing— all-powerful— watching over them, guiding them and still there was so much pain and destruction. And she drenched herself in the belief that if she wasn’t going to be blessed with death then she was going to survive, clawing her way through the world and give people like her stepfather and Joseph the pain and suffering they deserved. Because the world was unfair and innocents had to hurt before assholes were stopped. 

She stopped believing in that pretty quickly too. She stopped letting herself believe in anything. John made her want to, there was a disconnect somewhere in that twisted brain of his that made her want to believe he was actually  _ earnest _ about what he was saying. That couldn’t be ignored. The part of her that knew the truth— that knew John was as good at acting as she was at bottling away her past— well it wanted to laugh. 

“Why are you laughing?” John hissed. Was she? 

“I’m done with shitty white men telling me what I should believe in. You’ve broken every rule this supposed God has made, you have nothing. Even if Eden’s earthly gates remain for you, who’s to say heaven awaits? Take your salvation and shove it up your ass,” Sam sneered, “I don’t fucking need it.” 

John lost it for a moment, letting the violence that lurked beneath the snake oil salesman attitude shine through. He took two knives and drove them right through her hands. Her body stiffened with the force of holding back the screams she wanted to let out. The pain blinded her and her breath quickened and faltered. 

“If you’re such a martyr maybe you should bear the wounds,” John sneered. He pulled out the knives and let them clatter onto the work bench. Sam let out a tremulous gasp at the feeling and doubled over from the combined pain of her lungs and hands. He ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to put it back where it belonged and stormed out of the room. 

13 minutes. She focused on the 13 minutes she had to formulate and execute an escape plan with minimal damage to herself. Sam began loosening her restraints hours ago, and had John not felt the sudden need to “gift” her the stigmata marks then maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much to yank her arms backward to free her hands of the restraint. She had to sit for five minutes just to get her bearings. 

8 minutes. The great thing about John was that he’s actually kind of an idiot in some respects. He’d left all of his tools behind and now that her hands were free she could reach out for the bloody knife that was now an intimate acquaintance with minimal effort. It made cutting away at the rest of her restraints easier. Honestly she was glad John hadn’t thought it necessary to take her emergency med kit off her belt like he had the hunting knife, the gun, and the snack pouch Eli insisted she carried with her. She was more than a bit miffed when John had opened it up in curiosity and let out a noise of surprise before digging into  _ her _ granola bars right in front of her. She had to hand it to him, John knew exactly how to push her buttons. With that she bandaged her hands up as quickly as she could. 

3 minutes. She was going to have to book it. Think of a real plan as she went and maybe if she was lucky she’d get Hudson out. By the looks of it, she'd be lucky to get out on her own let alone find out where Hudson was being kept. She glanced quickly at the tools on the table, getting a quick sense of what she should take when the familiar leather holster popped up in her line of vision. John probably wanted to get a kick out of using it last. The final sacrifice, the relieving of the sin he marked. Taking it off the physical body to lift it from the soul it burdened. 

What utter bullshit. She took it without hesitation and ran to the door. 

2 minutes. The guard would be rounding the corner soon and if she timed it correctly she’d probably be able to maim the person and take their gun. She worked on picking the lock in the meantime, familiar with it from the last time she was there. It took her a lot less than last time too. She was grateful because otherwise she wouldn’t have slammed the door open directly into the guards face knocking the man over. 

A minute early. Had they tightened the rounds after taking her presence into account? Tightening it by a minute seemed ridiculous and insignificant. John was ridiculous and insignificant and so were most of his followers, so maybe that was exactly what they did. Either way the man doesn’t get back up— thoroughly knocked out by the heavy metal door and Sam takes his shit as well as a packet of fruit snacks she found looking for ammo. It’s not her damned granola bars but it felt like a small retribution as she popped them into her mouth one by one with a loaded gun slung over her shoulder. 


End file.
